North Macedonia, Bulgaria to sign cross-border rail tunnel deal

July 17 (SeeNews) - North Macedonia and Bulgaria will sign an agreement to build a cross-border tunnel along the railway section of pan-European Corridor VIII, the transport ministry in Skopje said on Thursday. Meeting between transport ministries of Bulgaria and North Macedonia. Photo source: N. Macedonia's transport ministry The two sides agreed to finalise the intergovernmental agreement by the end of July, aiming to sign it this autumn and start construction in early 2026, the transport ministry said in a press release. Both parties committed to exploring the best options for jointly applying for EU or partner institution funding for the project. The transport ministry also said that it will relaunch by the end of 2025 the tender for the railway section from Kriva Palanka to the Bulgarian border. It opened a tender for the construction of this section in December 2023, but cancelled it last year, saying the 560 million euro ($648.3 million) plan for 24 km of non-high-speed railway was unfeasible and too costly. The stretch from Kriva Palanka to the Bulgarian border is the third and final section of the planned railway that would lead straight into the tunnel's end in North Macedonia. The country began works on the extension in 2021 and opened the Kumanovo–Beljakovce section in January 2025, while the Beljakovce–Kriva Palanka section is under construction. The railway line will be part of pan-European Corridor VIII, an east-west route connecting Albania's Adriatic port of Durres to the Bulgaria's Black Sea port of Varna via North Macedonia.